One realistic way to commute is using private means of transport instead of public transport. City planning and development make public transportation complicated in the way transportation occurs, resulting in a lack of sense of how it works. As shown in the video, there is a disconnect between public transportation and destinations (Vox, 2020). The underlying reason for the disconnect is the design with which the road network was built. Public transportation was designed to help people commute from outside the cities inwards and vice versa. Therefore, the interstate commute was not factored in when planning public transportation. Most studies show that most Americans today commute between suburban routes that are not served by the public transport system (Vox, 2020). Not only did that result in the creation of car culture, but it also made it difficult to commute between suburbs on foot once public transportation on reaching the designed destination.
Moreover, the reality of the use of public transport service is the issue of private space. Evans and Wener (2006) argue that public transportation lies more with density and its inability to capture commuters’ experience in any given space. The issue of social contact increases with density, resulting in unpredictable and undesired interactions. With a lack of appreciation for the private commuter and how to move between suburbs, public transportation makes it less convenient to use when commuting in the suburbs. An insurmountable level of stress is associated with public transportation resulting in a lack of privacy (Evans & Wener, 2006). The experience is made worse, particularly during rushing hours, where body contact increases with the movement among passengers.
There must be changes in how the government plans for this form of commute to use public transportation, and the responsible institutions must ensure reliability in how neighborhoods are connected. There must be a leeway with which buses move between suburbs, making it possible to access them. Moreover, time intervals in how the buses reach the neighborhoods are also critical. For example, investing in basic operations on improving fundamental operations is critical in achieving better outcomes in Toronto. Funding by the government on projects associated with improving public transportation would significantly contribute to how the mode of transportation will be redesigned.
The major challenge with public transportation is, as established, the lack of privacy. With the long distances covered on foot after using trains and buses, public transportation results in more stress than private vehicles. As such, challenging the pillars of public transportation and restructuring how the system allows for inter-suburb transportation is a key milestone that must be met to facilitate the same levels of convenience as private vehicles. The government must first change its perspective on public transportation by looking at it from a public service rather than from a capitalist point of view. That would mean more investment in operations from a different approach to how the sector would benefit the citizens. Restructuring trains and buses are stopping points to minimize the walking distance between stops and respective workplaces. Currently, this distance is approximated to be 45 minutes, and changing it to let us say between five and ten minutes, will go a long way to improve my ability to use public transportation. The level of convenience would improve, maybe better than with the use of private transportation, and that would mean changing priorities in the means of transportation used.
References
Evans, G. W., & Wener, R. E. (2007). Crowding and personal space invasion on the train: Please don’t make me sit in the middle. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 27, 1, 90-94.
Vox. (2020). Why American public transit is so bad [Video]. Youtube. Web.